A Stigma of Shadows
Chapter one: Meeting I wasn't like your average would-be hunter, I had no single "type" to conform to, but today I saw it again, I was unsure if it was due to the fact I had been searching for one but it seemed to appear randomly, my campfire dying down. The creature knelt and looked into my eyes, its fangs covered in blood, saliva dripping down and its giant wolf-jaguar like body sitting right in front of me. Its body was covered in fur, it possessed superior intellect, the basic shape of a jaguar and the giant muscular form of a wolf woven into the existing muscle of a jaguar, bulky, with enough strength to pick up two and a half tons. Its jaws were extremely powerful, capable of pulverizing bones in a single blow. The fur was however thicker, mostly matt black, with silvery white blotches on either of its ribs, as well as on its crown. It was rare, in fact besides me, no one had seen any in the last two hundred years. It had a powerful tail that could articulate as well as a monkey's capable of smacking someone with quite a bit of force. It had the ability to speak and summon forth either fire, wind or sometimes even ice, usually considered generally an "elemental" creature it was extremely powerful. "You, you are the one who killed my brother?" it asked rising to its full six feet at its shoulders. "No," I looked into its shining silver-blue eyes and told the truth. "Then why do you smell of my kind's blood?" he asked. "My father was a cruel man.........." I looked away. "Why shouldn't I kill you?" he asked. "Because, I am hunting something much stronger then yourself, something that made my father look.......sane," I said. "What is this great beast, who is so much stronger than I?" he asked. "The Black Beast and me," I said as it tore its fur off to reveal a human-in shape anyway. "We have been utilizing Nen since before your species existed, how dare you say your stronger than I, the mighty Moros!" he yelled as he appeared and then I released my zetsu-bracelet. "What is this, its not even human!"he shouted. "It should be, I designed it to take down greater powers than your own," I said as he struck me with a reinforced punch, the aura swirling and slashing at my stomach, yet I held his hand still and looked seriously at him. "Two years," I said. "What?" Moros asked. "Two years, I spent developing my Hatsu, and as an accident, I found I can use both Transmutation and Enhancement at 100%, due to the nature of one of my more violent Nen abilities, but to tell you the truth, it was in a temple where timed passed slower, so it was more like five years, then factoring the way I mastered multiple parts, the priests even said "I had got over twenty years of training in five years". "What is this?" he asked as my aura quickly blackened. "The only way I can defeat you,"I said as the blackness came for me. He laid there, badly beaten and afraid, my greatest Nen ability having paralyzed him with fear. He looked at me. "You are a demon?" he asked me. "To defeat the devil it is necessary to rip away the mortal, to forge a demon in hellfire," I said as he stared at me. "How old are you?" he asked me as blood ran down his torn flesh. "Seventeen, I've been a hunter since birth, its just that I am now making it official," I said as he crawled to my feet. "Please let me travel with you, you and I are kin after all, and I wish to serve you, in any way," he said as I nodded and threw him over my shoulder in his human form. My sword was untouched as I could gauge the level of his strength, he was powerful, very powerful, but my greatest power was meant to rival the Black Beast's, that was the name I had given it, its true nature was foreign to me. I dragged him to the closest Nen-healer, a friend who was a hunter, and he wondered just exactly what beast did such a thing to him, I lied and said a few bandits with Nen-capabilities did it to him. After he was all healed up I coughed up some cash as a reward and he graciously accepted. "How did you get here so fast? We must've been a day's walk away from here," he noted as I nodded to my ankles to reveal circular scars forming two concentric rings and threw heavy metal anklets at him. "These must be a hundred kilograms!" he shouted. "My father made me use these since I was five, they have unique properties due to the fact they are formed from Nen, whenever attached to my ankles and arms and such they increase in weight, but when I take them off, which took me a while to figure out, they get super-light till before I put the weights on again, like now, I am sending Nen to it to be able to increase their weight, however I am not a Conjurer, these were made by a friend of my father's," I explained. "Wait so if your capable of running around at such speed without the weights on, then without them and Enhancment, you would be........"he trailed off. "I can get some for you too, my way to the Hunter's Exam is also on the way to a Conjurer friend's," I said as we began to race each other, with my weights attached. I defeated a Manbeast, a rare half-beast, half-man creature, they were born with certain talents, but years of training had turned my body into that of a weapon, and I was still able to keep up with him at full speed. My zetsu bracelet still on my wrist. I was originally going to take a train but to train him I was making him run more, and I forbid him to transform, as his agility would increase, so work on the weaker form, boost the strong form. After three days we had decided to stop at a hotel, both of us panting and exhausted, as we hadn't slept. I slept sitting against the wall, and awoke to the sound of my grumbling stomach. One of many prices I paid for my myriad of abilities, I needed very-high protein intake, and insomnia had become normal to me. We walked down to the humble diner, and I paid for and received a hefty amount of bacon, sausage, ham and scrambled eggs with a side of pancakes. While there was a lot, but I had developed this form of diet, not eating for half a week then pigging out. My reason? To test my body. We stopped by my friend's villa in the far East of the Yorubian Continent, and he conjured up the weights to my specifications, to basically duplicate mine five times over because I could sell a few or train extra hard. The weights, due to being imbued with Nen, were capable of shifting their weight, for example, whenever ten kilograms became easy for you, it would increase. I had cut into my feet just to pry them off, if I hadn't, I would probably be even more built. The fact was we were going to have to find a navigator. A ship was in the harbor, and I used Gyo to see Nen users, and found one ship with five, so i went on it. "All aboard," he yelled as we boarded while I dished out the cash. As I walked by the sailor stared at me and smiled. "Welcome to the Pre-Exam, Nen users," he referred to us as we walked past him. "Should be interesting," I smirked as the boat headed off towards the island where the exam would take place. The next day we were surrounded by what appeared to be giant serpent's, we were in the famed "Serpent's Pass" a place where giant seaserpents the size of entire ships would appear, this however wasn't the Pre-exam, I felt the Pre-exam was going to be more psychological. The serpent rose its head and spoke with me. "You, what are you?" it asked me. "Someone whose path you are blocking," I said calmly. "This is my home!" it shouted as I showed him my eyes, burning with cold fury I could never quite put out. "Move or die!" I declared. "Alviss, this isn't smart," Moros said as I turned and unsheathed my sword and it hissed splitting most people's ears. "You dare challenge me with a sword?" it asked as if I were insane. "No, but with its power, yes," I said slicing open my palm and jumping on its back, slamming my palm into its left eye, which was roughly the size of my body. "Why......why can't I move?" it shouted, frozen still and then it lowered me onto the deck. "Its a contract of mine, if I can get my blood in someone's blood stream, I can force my aura inside them, and then seize control of their aura nodes and by extension, their body," I said as its eyes opened wide. "How?" the captain asked me. "I am a transmutation type, my aura takes the properties of a combination of chemicals, altering the existing creatures synapses, resulting in mind control, but another limitation is I can only use it for a day, and I can't control extremely complex creatures with intense will such as humans, or Manbeasts," I said turning to Moros. "How many conditions must be met?" Moros asked. "Five, one it must have my blood in its blood stream, two, I must make eye contact, and not break it, and third, I must converse with it, four I must challenge it, five, I must have extreme focus," I explained to Moros. "Amazing, what drawacks does it have?" he asked as the serpent left us and I began discussing the drawbacks to which he gasped. "You could die?" he asked worriedly. "Yeah, my will must be greater than theirs, my body must absorb any damage taken to their body instead of their own during the time I use this ability, meaning if someone were to kill that serpent I would die too. It may seem flawless on the outside but its not, even now I am struggling to conquer it mentally," I explained as I felt the pre-exam begin. Just as I thought we somehow lost supplies, now the ship was low on rations, all we had to do is wait it out, if we did that then maybe we could make it. We were stuck on a ship with no wind, no food and they weren't fishing for us, so it was a physical test as well. The idea was to starve someone, and then make them hunt, to prove their physical worth, while making them starve would make them paranoid as to whether they could trust anyone, the whole alone at sea bit was what they were going for. After five days we arrived at an island off the coast of the Yorubian Continent, most of the applicants left on a cruise liner nearby and I looked forward, toward the intelligence and power of being a Hunter.